


In Broad Daylight

by a_little_chai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Dean Winchester Uses Actual Words, Dean Winchester-centric, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Happy Ending, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, as in actual conversations about serious issues, set around season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_little_chai/pseuds/a_little_chai
Summary: Dean struggles with nightmares about Hell, and Sam helps him understand he is no longer the monster that Alastair made there.





	In Broad Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This has been in my unfinished folder for the longest time and finally I got around to doing the ending. Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Warnings in end notes.

__

Who needs  
The dark ambiance  
Of the night  
When nightmares  
Can collapse you  
In broad daylight?  
~ Kalob Baru

It was dark, strikingly empty. There was nothing, in a way that was disturbing. Like being in the middle of a black hole. Creepy as fuck, in his opinion.

He stood up carefully, looking around. The black made his head spin, hard to tell what was up and what was down. Although there wasn't exactly a floor or a sky for that to matter. 

Noises assaulted his ears, screams and cries and whimpers and whines. Sounds of Hell and torture he just couldn’t, couldn’t listen to. It flooded in from all sides, having no origin, no place that it sprung from. As though it just existed, permeating his inner self and tainting it forever. 

He could almost smell the brimstone, the fiery sulfur that stuck to every soul and slowly blackened them from the inside out. Feeling it attack his own, his emotions becoming more and more muted every day. Until he'd gone from constant agony to listening to others go through the same thing without feeling one, damn, thing. Until he'd learned the exact points that gave extreme pain, the worst ways for someone to die. Especially if they were just going to wake up again, memories intact. And the terror gave way to numb gave way to joy. 

The walls felt like they were closing in. Like a shitty action movie, slowly getting closer and closer until it pressed in on all sides, threatening a very bloody death. Knees buckling, he crawled and griped along the impossibly-smooth surface, before giving up and curling into a ball. His hands fisted into his hair, pulling. He tried to plug his ears, but it didn’t help. As though the sounds were a mark on his most true self he could never cover. 

“Just make it stop, make it stop!” He screamed out into the dark. But he couldn’t hear his own voice over the din. Voice rough, it quickly faded down into whimpers. “Please, get me out. Get me out, out.” 

The dark was shifting, becoming more liquid. He wasn’t lying down, but struggling to stay afloat. 

“P-please!” 

His head was just above the tar, hands and legs treading desperately to keep it there. 

Grasping for any semblance of safety, he could only think of two things. Sammy, his little brother, the one he needed to protect with his own life. And Cas. The angel who raised him out of Hell. 

“Cas! Sam!” He screamed out as the water covered his ears, mouth. Sulfur inched its way down his throat as he gagged, spitting. But it settled deep inside him, a heavy lump of sin in his stomach. 

Something grabbed him, pulling him quickly under the surface of the black sea. He thrashed and struggled, but he was slowly being dragged out. Drowning in the endless ocean.

••• •••

He woke up gasping. Last he remembered, black fluid had been rushing down his throat. It was gone now, but that faint taste of sulfur still curdled in his mouth, brimstone smell clinging to his body.

He pushed the covers off quickly, running to the bathroom. 

Minutes later, he rested his head against the porcelain seat, feeling the cool seep into his skin. It was a nice feeling, the temperature both cooling and grounding. Nothing ever felt like this in Hell, either too hot or just numb. 

After he’d said ‘yes’, after he’d started the torture, there’d just been this absolute nothing. As though the depths of the pit were already turning his heart. He’d looked for sensation anywhere he could find it, but never did it feel real. Not like this. 

“Dean? You alright in there?” Sam’s voice came from outside the door. He forced himself to raise his head, temples pounding. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He winced at how rough his voice sounded. Jesus, it was like he’d been screaming for hours. A flash of black all around him, yells and shouts.

It had been a bad one, worse than he’d had in a few months. There was something different, though. He couldn’t quite place it. 

He staggered over to the sink, and splashed water into his face, relishing the cold against his flushed cheeks. 

“Really? Because it sounds like you were just hurling your guts out.” The kid would never let up, would he? 

“It’s nothing, just a bit too much of the Jack. After-hunt celebrating, y'know?” He was pretty sure his brother would buy that. Wasn’t like it didn’t happen most days. Except, the alcohol was just for partying. He couldn’t stay halfway sane without it.

There was a few moments of hesitation, before a grumbled “okay” from Sam. 

Footsteps led away from the door, and he let himself relax a bit. Gargled some water from the sink to get both the vomit and the sulfur out of his mouth. Although one still stayed, as much as he tried. 

Stripping, he studied himself in front of the mirror. Whole, practically scar-free after the reconstruction job Cas had done. He ran the shower as cold as he could tolerate, savoring the pure feeling that came from it even as shivers racked his body. 

He stayed under the spray for a few minutes, until the cold really did get to be too much and he forced himself to shut it off. 

Walking out into the room, he was not expecting an angel to be sitting in the chair. Totally was not expecting that. 

“What the hell, Cas?” He yelled, clutching the towel tighter to his waist. He knew the angel had no sense of privacy but fuck. “What are you doing here, staring all creepy-like?” 

Cas just tilted his head to the side. “I was watching over you.” As though that fucking explained it. 

A blush spread across his chest which he tried desperately to ignore. Just how much had he been watching? 

“In the future, don’t.” 

“I was simply making sure you were alright, Dean.” 

He sighed. He would never get through to the angel. 

“Why are you here, anyways? Don’t you have important, I don’t know, angel-y buisiness to take care of?” 

Cas stood up, coming closer to him until they were a bit too close for his comfort, especially almost naked. “Your soul was crying out to me last night. A plea to raise you from perdition. I came expecting you to be in danger, but instead you were simply dreaming. I put you into a deeper rest.” 

He took an involuntary step backwards, looking towards the ground. “I was... screaming?” 

Cas nodded. 

He’d been trying to keep these a secret from Sam. Showering to cover the smell and trying his best to look well-rested. Hell, he bought one of those stupid eye cream things that are supposed to make dark circles smaller. Anything to avoid Sam knowing about the nightmares. 

Seemed that was fucked. 

“Uh, well, thanks Cas, but I’m good now. You can go back to doing whatever you were before.” He tried to sound calm, normal, but a hint of a tremor still broke through. 

"Dean, your soul was flayed when I brought you back, and these nightmares are not only of Hell. Sam said you've been having them with some frequency. I assume you didn't tell him about this?" 

He looked away sheepishly, which is probably answer enough. 

"I would implore you to discuss this with him. You both went to Hell and back, maybe it would be beneficial."

“Look, man, I’m not about to just go around, bitching about my feelings.” 

Something in the angel’s face softened. “Dean, you were in Hell. No human soul is meant to survive that, not without becoming twisted into a demon. Your very self was pleading with me to raise you from your nightmare. Asking your brother for help could hardly be considered.... ‘bitching.’” 

Air quotes. Dean smiled a bit despite himself. Cas was sometimes just so... him. 

“Sam, he doesn’t know what it’s like. He doesn’t... he doesn’t know what I did.” He looked down at his hands, half expecting blood to cover them again. “He would think I’m a monster.” 

“If anyone is the opposite of what you hunt, Dean Winchester, it is you.” 

And, looking into his own guardian angel’s eyes, he had a glimmer of hope. It darted away, as a quick as it had come. But for a second, it had been there. 

The hope that maybe, just maybe, he was right.

••• •••

The house they were staying in was abandoned, probably because of a foreclosure or something. But it was still relatively new and working, and close to where their last case had been. More spacious than any motel they could afford.

Sam was sitting at the dining table, staring at his laptop. He looked up when he entered. 

“Hey, man. You feeling better?”

He nodded absently. Sam knew. About the nightmares. And he’d been screaming. He could have said anything. So his little brother could know what he saw. Not just the black, or Hell. The darker ones, where it wasn’t just faceless souls on his rack, but Sam or Cas or Bobby or Jo. His friends and his family, strung up ready to be tortured. And he always delivered. Every. Goddamn. Time. 

“So I guess that means you’re up for another hunt. There’s been some supposed animal attacks up in Minnesota that have all the markings of a were-“ 

“You know.” He broke in. 

“Know... what?” Sam asked, sounding genuinely confused. But there was just a slight undercurrent of something more. A hint of desperation. 

“About the nightmares.” 

Something like tension fled from Sam’s shoulders, and they slumped a bit. It was only then he really noticed how dark it was under Sam’s eyes. How sunken in they were. 

“Yeah.” 

“How long?” He demanded, walking up to the table and sitting down. 

“As long as they’ve been happening, Dean. It’s not exactly subtle.” His brother bit back. “How’d you find out?” 

“Cas told me. Said I was screaming.” Something hardened and blackened in Sam’s eyes before he looked away. But for the moment Dena could see them, they looked... hauntwd. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” 

“What was that going to do, Dean? You’re having flashbacks. It’s normal, it’s common, even. You went to Hell.” Sam’s eyes were glistening, red furling in his cheeks. “I thought it’d be better to let you keep one little bit of privacy to yourself. One part of your life that wasn’t bared open for me to see or for someone to manipulate.” 

There was a silence that dropped, heavy as the two brothers stared at each other. The anger leeched out of Dean, and he put his face in his hands. 

"Look, I know what Hell's like, and I didn't even have half of what you did. I get that this feels inescapable and humiliating." Sam went on. "But you don't have to hide it from me." 

"You don't-" He started, than stopped. What could he say? His brother did understand, had lived through it too. He says it's not as bad, but being tortured by Lucifer for a thousand years has got to be worse than what he got. He'd seen Sam's own dreams. Seen him with Lucifer riding shotgun. Didn't exactly sound like fucking sunshine and rainbows. 

"I don't judge you for it, or anything. You know I don't." His words sounded more like a plea than anything else. But it just made the guilt inside him grow. 

"I... I'm not some hero, Sam." Not like you. "The souls on my rack, the people, they weren't anything when I was through with them. Do you know what Alastair taught me?"

He looked up, and saw Sam just looking at him with sad eyes. "He taught me how to break someone. How to take their very soul and wrench it so totally that it turned black. The things I did..."

The rest of the sentence hung in the air, not needing completion. In the heavy silence that followed, he watched understanding grow in Sam's eyes. "You think you deserve this."

It wasn't a question, just a fact, as simple as werewolves can be killed with a silver bullet. He deserved the pain and the darkness and the death. He deserved to be plagued with visions of hurting those he loved forever. He deserved that and so much more. 

"Dean, you went to Hell to save me. You survived for thirty years. What more could you have done?"

"I could have said no! I could have let him flay my soul down to the bone and rip every organ from my body. I could have let the hellhounds rip me to shreds over and over and-" 

He cut off, a sob rising in his throat. "I should have known it wasn't you."

"...what?"

Dean walked to the table and grabbed his bottle of whiskey, ignoring Sam's disapproving glance. "Thirty fucking years I let him torture me. And every day it was the same question. And even when my tongue was lying on the ground, my head severed, I managed to answer no."

"Dean-"

"No, Sam. I need to say this." He took another long swig from the bottle, savoring the burn down his throat. "He said... He said you killed yourself. My death was too much to handle or something and it gave a you a non-stop ticket downstairs. And then... then he said he would do everything to you. Use every trick in the book on you for the next millennia. And I just... I just couldn't let that happen. I couldn't-"

He continued to stare at the golden brown liquid in his hands, ignoring Sam's stare. "I took that knife, and I carved into my first soul. I made a demon out of some poor IT tech that had had an affair with her boss. That was her big sin, just a bit of fun one night. And she begged me over and over until I slit her throat. Alastair, he waited until then to tell me it was a lie; you were still alive."

He could feel Sam's question burning into him. It created a heavy silence, until Dean broke it. "Just ask." 

He heard his brother's heavy swallow, could tell he was holding back tears. His voice was a painful rasp. "Why didn't you stop?"

"I... I don't know, Sam. I honestly don't fucking know. It was just... like something was missing. That part of you that cares about everything. I was nothing during those years. I barely remember most of it." 

He watched Sam run a heavy hand through his hair, then as his fingers tapped against the table. It was an SOS, something he must've been doing unconsciously, but seemed fitting. 

"Dean... What do you dream about?"

"What?"

"It's us, right? Me and Cas and everyone else? You watch us getting hurt."

The tapping stopped, abrupt enough that Dean looked up. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

Sam offered a small smile. "Because I know you." His brother opened his laptop, tapping a few buttons. "Do you remember that case a year ago, with the ghost that was haunting a playground?" 

"Sam-" 

"There was a little girl, her name was Christy. We managed to grab her before the ghost led her to that lake and drowned her."

"What does this have to do with-"

"She got on her state's national juvenile basketball team. They won nationals a month ago, or at least, that's what she told me when she sent an email, thanking us for saving her." 

A few more clicks. "Six months ago, the werewolf case up in New York. We saved five people from that den, Dean. Their names were Felicity, Drew, Harry, Lisa, and James." Sam looked up, giving him a look. "Lisa and James are expecting now. It's a girl. Her name will be Rose Cathy Ferrity. I can keep going."

Dena couldn't look up from the bottle. He knew if he did, he might lose what little grip he still has on his emotions. "It doesn't change what I did."

"Do you know how many people we've saved, Dean? Hell, we stopped the Apocalypse a few times. All for people who don't even know monsters exist. And every time we put our lives on the line. You know what that tells me about you?"

Dean finally looked up, green eyes lighting on burning hazel. "It tells me you care. You're not in Hell anymore, you're not... torturing. You... you're the same man who saved all those people, who saved the damn world three times over. You're the brother who kissed every scraped knee and stitched every wound. And you're the Righteous Man chosen by God, as much as you want to deny it." 

Dean felt his hands loosening from where they held the bottle, and it clattered to the table. "But-"

"Dean, none of this is your fault. You don't deserve shitty nightmares or to be holed up in some abandoned house with me for the tenth day on end. You are better than most of the people out there in the world, certainly better than all the souls in Hell. Just... tell me you understand that?"

Dena could only stare at him. He could tell Sam believed every word he was saying. And the burning resolve in his eyes was enough to break the glass cage around his heart. Years and years of guilt and pain and longing freed from a prison he hadn't even known was there. 

"Sammy, I-" His voice cracked, and he forced himself to stop talking. The lump of emotions in his throat was too big to force the words through. 

"There... there were so many times I thought I was going to lose you, so many close calls. Just, can you worry about yourself for a while?" Sam let out a little chuckle, tears glittering in his eyes. "You don't always need to be the one doing the protecting. Give me the chance to be the big brother for a change." 

"...okay, Sammy. Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
Very brief mentions of suicide
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please hop, skip, and jump down to the kudo button. And if you really enjoyed, leave a comment!
> 
> ~You are loved, and never alone. We are here for you, and you are enough.~


End file.
